With the iPhone 12 in the hands of eager early adopters, not everyone is immediately using the latest apps or taking pictures. Some folks are, inevitably, opening their iPhones to see what makes them tick.

Of course, iFixIt is one of those people. The repair website cracked open a brand-new iPhone 12 and an iPhone 12 Pro, and the big surprise is how much the two devices have in common: Not only do the OLED Retina display, Taptic engine, and 2,815mAh battery look identical and they are basically interchangeable.

In other words, the iPhone 12 Pro screen will work fine on the iPhone 12. This is a bit of a surprise given the slightly different screen specs, and the iPhone 12 Pro screen can be 200 nits brighter than the normal device.

Of course, this is not to say that there is no point in buying the iPhone 12 Pro, and there should be obvious differences even without such a teardown. First, the capacity doubles, with the Pro starting at 128GB and going up to 512GB, whereas the regular iPhone 12 is 64GB to 256GB.

Then there's the camera module: while the iPhone 12 Pro has a telephoto lens and LiDAR scanner, the regular iPhone 12 has a plastic spacer to close the gap. 12MP wide and ultra-wide cameras are again shared between the two.

Here is a breakdown by Creative Electron of X-rays of the two devices side by side.

Of course, it wouldn't be an iFixIt breakdown without a grade on the iPhone 12's ease of repair. iFixIt praises the use of screws over modular components and glue, but screws are difficult to manage and require a special screwdriver to access. [15 points] [16 points] Besides, the improved water resistance makes things more complicated, and the heavy use of glass only spells trouble. The site notes, "If the back glass breaks, you'll have to remove all the parts and replace the entire chassis."

Thankfully, Apple is quite confident in the iPhone 12's durability thanks to the introduction of Ceramic Shield. According to early tests, this is quite true, and the iPhone 12 was able to withstand a surprisingly steep drop to concrete without becoming unusable.